Hillary Clinton, The Whore of Babylon ?
The Whore of Babylon or Babylon the Great is a female figure and also place of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Her full title is given as “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth.”
PASSAGES IN REVELATIONS
The “great whore”, of the biblical Book of Revelation is featured in chapters 17 and 18.
| 17:1 | And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: |
| 17:2 | With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. [“Fornication” is interpreted/translated as “idolatry” in the Amplified Bible (AMP), the New American Bible mentions “harlotry”] |
| 17:3 | So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. |
| 17:4 | And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: |
| 17:5 | And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. [King James Version; the New International Version uses “prostitutes” instead of “harlots”]. |
| 17:6 | And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. |
| 17:9 | And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. [King James Version; the New International Version Bible and the New American Bible use “hills” instead of “mountains”]. |
| 17:10 | And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he comes, he must continue a short space. |
| 17:11 | And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition. |
| 17:12 | And the ten horns which thou saw are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. |
| 17:15 | And he said unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. |
| 17:18 | And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth. |
SYMBOLISM
The Whore is associated with the Antichrist and the Beast of Revelation by connection with an equally evil kingdom. (The word “Whore” can also be translated metaphorically as “Idolatress”). The Whore’s apocalyptic downfall is prophesied to take place in the hands of the image of the beast with seven heads and ten horns. There is much speculation within Christian eschatology on what the Whore and beast symbolize as well as the possible implications for contemporary interpretations.
JERUSALEM
Alan James Beagley, David Chilton, J. Massyngberde Ford, Peter Gaskell, Kenneth Gentry, Edmondo Lupieri, Bruce Malina, Iain Provan, J. Stuart Russell, Milton S. Terry and theologians point out that although Rome was the prevailing pagan power in the 1st century when the Book of Revelation was written, the symbolism of the whore of Babylon refers not to an invading infidel of foreign power, but to an apostate false queen, a former “bride” who has been unfaithful and who, even though she has been divorced and cast out because of unfaithfulness, continues to falsely claim to be the “queen” of the spiritual realm. This symbolism did not fit the case of Rome at the time. Proponents of this view suggest that the “seven mountains” in Rev 17:9 are the seven hills on which Jerusalem stands and the “fall of Babylon” in Rev 18 is the fall and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
Several Old Testament prophets referred to Jerusalem as being a spiritual harlot and a mother of such harlotry (Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:1–11; Ezekiel 16:1–43; Ezekiel 23, Galatians 4:25). Some of these Old Testament prophecies as well as the warnings in the New Testament concerning Jerusalem are in fact very close to the text concerning Babylon in Revelation, suggesting that John may well have actually been citing those prophecies in his description of Babylon.
For example, in Matthew 23:34–37 and Luke 11:47–51, Jesus himself assigned all of the bloodguilt for the killing of the prophets and of the saints (of all time) to the Pharisees of Jerusalem, and, in Revelation 17:6 and 18:20,24, almost identical phrasing is used in charging that very same bloodguilt to Babylon. This is also bolstered by Jesus’ statement that “it’s not possible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” (Luke 13:33).
